Government Provision of IT Security Resources

A new study from the School of Management at Royal Holloway, University of London, in collaboration with Nammis, has found that the government in the UK is failing to provide advice to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) about information and communication technology (ICT), including about security.

The study questioned over 500 SMEs across various industries in order to determine the usage and adoption of ICT, including wireless access, websites, intranet and video/audio conferencing. The study was to determine if SMEs were adopting ICT at the rate considered critical for competitiveness in the global market and digital economy.

Most of the small and medium businesses contacted were fully in favor of information and communication technologies, but their limited money and expertise hindered their ability to adopt and use the technologies. The government is one of the few resources that SMEs can turn to for guidance, but unfortunately this part of the equation falls apart.

Across all sectors, it was found that businesses do not turn to the government or local authority for advice. Less than 5%, and as low as 1%, of companies in the various sectors will seek support from the government. It is not clear how much of this is a lack of provision of proper support or how much of it is poor advice.

Although the point of this survey was to point out the critical needs of SMEs to become competitive in the global market by doing things such as online sales, it does point to the growing issue of IT security and its accessibility to SMEs as well. Regardless of the size of the business, the compliance regulations require that businesses protect the personal information of their stakeholders. As the SMEs attempt to scale their IT infrastructure with little guidance on how to do so, we will likely see more (not less) security issues developing as a result.

While the government does not bear the entire responsibility for IT security in the corporate sector, I believe that it does share in the responsibility of providing educational resources to help companies manage their overall IT, and particularly IT security, needs.

What do you think? Do you think the government should provide IT security resources to SMEs?

Via intergovworld Image: ridge @moreguefile Tags: it security, government, sme, small business, medium business, information security, global market, global economy, technology, it, business